German incumbent makes M2M moves

German incumbent carrier Deutsche Telekom and its cellular arm T-Mobile have signed a deal with Italian headquartered machine to machine (M2M) specialist Telit Wireless Solutions that will see the three firms collaborating on product development for M2M solutions.

The announcement follows last week’s news that had the fixed and mobile carriers ink a memorandum of understanding with Chinese vendor Huawei signalling activities in the same sphere. In September last year, T-Mobile signed a deal with Sierra wireless along similar lines.

“As the operator of an extensive, mature mobile phone network, the M2M market offers us enormous potential for growth,” said Mark Büsgen, head of business development for corporate clients at T-Mobile Deutschland.

The ‘internet of things’, whereby personal connectivity numbers are dwarfed by vast swathes of internet-enabled devices is felt by some to be on the path to becoming a reality. Ericsson has predicted 50 billion connected devices by 2020. Forrester research has projected that the number of mobile machine sessions will be 30 times higher than the number of mobile person sessions in the same year.

Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile and Telit share a clear objective, the firms said. “The agreement covers the areas of product development – including the simplification and standardization of products – sales and marketing. In particular, the companies plan to identify relevant target markets in the telematics, fleet management, navigation, smart metering (remote metering), vending machine and security segments. T-Mobile and Telit will be looking to work closely together in developing and marketing M2M solutions,” Telit said in a statement.

Last July, both, Vodafone and Verizon both announced M2M projects of their own. Verizon established a join venture with Qualcomm, while Vodafone launched a global services platform specific to M2M solutions.